As of October 21st, now in Virginia, I continue to make my journal entries as “pages,” but I remain behind with updating some of the old “postings” as pages.

It’s time consuming to write and post each entry. I generally intend, at every stop, to chip away at this catch-up work, but I never seem to have as much time for it as I’d like.

The “page” numbers on the left are not in order. Rearranging them numerically is a trick I still haven’t learned. But whether you wish to read this journal chronologically, or to examine a particular entry, you’ll be able to find what you want without much trouble.

The segments of my trip are numerical, beginning in Clifton, New Jersey, on September 2nd. The entry I’m making today, from Rich Creek, Virginia, is Number 23.

Several of the middle entries remain on the main page. They are as follows:

#7. Nixa: Now

#8. Nixa: Retrospective

#11. Salem

#13. Sikeston: Cotton Country

#14. Vienna: That’s “VAI-yenna”

They appear, from top to bottom on the main page, in reverse order; that is, from most to least recent, starting with #14 and going down through #7.

There is also a ghost entry – #6, from Clinton. I thought I sent a message out from that attractive little farming town in western Missouri, as an email with several pictures attached. I will either – at some point – find and post it as a “page,” or I’ll eliminate the place it’s holding and subtract one from all “page” numbers beginning with seven.

I am learning how to blog on the fly, as I make this – rather arduous – journey.

I’m about as good at computer technology as I am, say, at bicycle mechanics, foreign languages, cooking, yoga, chess and go, or any of the many other skills and interests I’ve pursued, off and on or steadily, over the years. Which is to say, in all cases, rather mediocre … passable, but in no way extraordinary. If there’s anything extraordinary about what I do, it’s the lack of embarrassment and inhibition with which I go about following “my way.”

So you, Dear Reader, are left to fill in some of the blanks – technologically induced or otherwise.

Obviously, I would think, this is an expression of love. Partly and simply a love of life – lived as it should be, in my view: freely, with resourcefulness and humor, and as an expression of one’s own unique individuality.

Partly also it’s an expression of love … for my country and her people … as we search in these deeply troubled times for our proper way and our true identity. I have faith that the answers are there, and that these folk I observe and encounter, all along my path, have it in them to prevail, through their fundamental goodness and persistent competence, against all the daunting ills and travails that beset us.

Finally, there is no preconceived design or goal to this. It is merely something that I love to do – a journey and a mode of expression which anyone so inclined is welcome to share and participate in. Like all creative endeavors, it will acquire its own life and take on its own direction.